As the games industry navigates economic turbulence and widespread layoffs, the conversation around sustainability has shifted decisively from purely fiscal metrics to a human-centric model. Sara Veal, founder of consultancy Huhbub and chair of GamesAid, represents this evolved approach. Her framework for a sustainable industry is built not on projections and profit margins, but on the foundational wellbeing of the people who make games. It posits that a studio’s most critical asset is its workforce, and that lasting success depends on systemic cultural support rather than temporary, performative programmes. Through her work in people strategy, mentorship, and charity leadership, Veal translates a philosophy of care into actionable principles for studios of all sizes, advocating for a future where passion is no longer leveraged against exploitation.
The Core Challenge: Passion Versus Exploitation
Veal identifies the central tension in game development as the conflict between passion and exploitation. The industry attracts deeply committed creatives, but this love for the craft can become a vulnerability. “Games attract people who love what they do, and that passion can be leveraged against them,” she says. This risk is heightened by industry instability, where developers may accept unsustainable conditions due to a perceived lack of alternatives. The high-pressure, deadline-driven environment that makes game development exciting—ambitious scope, talented teams, and high standards—is precisely what can lead to burnout if not intentionally counterbalanced. Veal argues that a studio failing to invest in its people’s mental health is, in effect, borrowing against its own future.
Implementing Effective Wellbeing Initiatives
Moving from diagnosis to action, Veal’s methodology stresses that effective support must be tailored and authentic. The biggest mistake, she cautions, is implementing generic programmes that look good superficially but fail to address the team’s specific needs. “Survey your people, engage with the results, and show that you have. Find out where the stress lives,” she advises. The root cause—whether it is crunch, unclear communication, financial anxiety, or lack of autonomy—must shape the intervention. Furthermore, any initiative must be genuinely accessible, not merely technically available.
Culture Over Programme for Smaller Studios
For studios with limited resources, Veal emphasises that foundational culture is often more powerful and sustainable than formal programmes. A healthy culture can surpass one that offers a meditation app subscription and virtual socials which overworked staff cannot engage with. Key cultural actions include clearly signposting free and affordable resources, integrating rest periods directly into production schedules, and most critically, ensuring leadership visibly models healthy behaviours. Leaders must leave work at reasonable times, take their allotted leave, and speak openly about stress. “Leadership behaviour tells people what’s actually valued, regardless of what the employee handbook says,” Veal states. If executives treat crunch as a badge of honour or dismiss mental health conversations, no wellbeing programme can overcome that signal. Culture flows downward; leadership behaviour is de facto policy.
The Importance of Everyday Habits and Structural Basics
Beyond formal initiatives, Veal highlights the enormous impact of everyday habits: normalising honest workload conversations in meetings and one-to-ones; celebrating sustainable delivery rather than only heroic effort; ensuring people actually use their leave; and fostering meaningful social connection not as productivity theatre but because protective relationships matter. She notes that many mental health issues are structural problems in disguise, making the fundamentals of good employment—fair pay, clear communication, reasonable hours—the most underrated wellbeing intervention available.
Measuring Wellbeing: Quantitative and Qualitative Signals
To gauge the effectiveness of these efforts, Veal recommends a blended approach. Quantitative metrics include tracking sickness absence rates, use of employee assistance programmes, staff turnover, and trends in engagement surveys. Qualitative assessment involves observing whether employees discuss feelings openly, whether managers hold meaningful conversations beyond perfunctory reviews, and whether staff feel safe to raise concerns early. She offers a crucial insight: sometimes a sign that wellbeing is working looks like friction initially. “Employees feeling safe enough to speak up and advocate for themselves in ways they weren’t able to before—that’s a good sign, even if it feels like a challenge to leadership.” Veal warns against wellbeing metrics becoming performative; tracking a ‘wellbeing score’ as a KPI without enacting cultural change is futile. The number is not the point; the lived experience is.
Leadership During Crisis: Transparency and Dignity
Amid ongoing layoffs and economic uncertainty, Veal’s framework demands that companies communicate early and honestly. The anxiety of uncertainty—not knowing if a role is safe or why decisions are made—is often more damaging than the difficult news itself. Transparent leaders, even when they lack all answers, foster more team resilience than those who manage by information control. When redundancies occur, treating people with dignity is paramount. A good exit process, including fair severance, outplacement support, honest references, and a genuine goodbye, matters enormously. “How a company behaves at its worst is what people remember and talk about,” Veal notes. She also observes that wellbeing support is often among the first resources cut during a crisis, despite being a load-bearing structure, not a decoration. Stripping back mental health support, open communication, and clear processes during a downturn targets exactly what would help people endure it.
Sustaining Generosity: The Role of GamesAid
Veal’s principles extend beyond studio walls into her work with GamesAid, where she champions the industry’s capacity for lasting charitable impact. In 2023/24, GamesAid donated £150,000 to its selected charities, raising total contributions to over £6.23 million. Sustaining and growing this figure during industry turbulence—with widespread layoffs, studio closures, and economic pressure on individuals—is, in her view, fantastic. “It would have been easy for charitable giving to fall away. It did not because this industry cares,” she says. She underscores the material impact: a £20,000 donation to an organisation with a turnover under £2.5 million can fund transformative research, mobility aids for a young person, or a wish for a child running out of time. Beyond fundraising, Veal values the resilience built within the GamesAid team and the network of trustees. She acknowledges the challenge of being a small charity that cannot compete on marketing spend, relying instead on the industry to tell its story. Her response to the notion that charitable giving is a luxury during job insecurity is clear: GamesAid speaks to the heart of the industry, and the community’s inherent generosity is worth protecting.
Sara Veal’s framework ultimately redefines sustainability. It is not a peripheral HR consideration but the central operating system for a healthy industry. By prioritising people over programmes, culture over crunch, and transparency over control, she outlines a path where passion is protected rather than exploited. This approach recognises that the wounds of recent layoffs will not heal by being ignored, but by doing better—by treating people as the primary asset they truly are. Whether within a studio or through collective charitable action, building things that last means first sustaining the people who build them.
